


i've seen this room and i've walked this floor

by NatureGirl202



Series: Band of Misfits [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, just a little backstory for my dnd/pathfinder half-elf ranger, pretty angsty just fyi lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9652076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatureGirl202/pseuds/NatureGirl202
Summary: She’s six when she learns that not everybody sticks around.





	

She’s six when she learns that not everybody sticks around. She wakes up like any normal day and finds her mother preparing breakfast. Her father is nowhere to be found and that’s _fine_ , that’s _normal_. He could be doing chores, or hunting, or at the city for supplies. He could be doing anything and it doesn’t matter what, because he would be back by night, entering the house with his loud footfalls that usually wake her but actually hadn’t the night before. Except, he’s not back that night or the next or any night after that and by the time she’s ten, she barely remembers his face.

It’s another six years later and she’s twelve when she learns the truth is optional and that others may give it and take it as they please. She’s sitting at the table, idly stirring the soup her mother had made with her spoon. Her mother is standing up from the table, legs of her chair scraping noisily against the floor of the cabin. Her mother is grabbing her own empty bowl when Sefhana looks up and speaks a six-year-old question.

“Mother, what happened to Father?” It’s another way of asking _“Why do you not speak of him?”_ and _“Where has your smile gone?”_ because these and why she hasn’t hit a squirrel with an arrow yet are the questions that keep her up at night.

Her mother does not flinch nor wince or even hesitate in her movements as she takes her dishes to their small kitchen. Her face remains the same it has for six years, reminding Sefhana of the beautiful, stoic women she had seen on some paintings when her mother had taken her to the city two years ago. She’d wondered why everyone had cooed over them, when their eyes were obviously so sad.

“Finish your meal, sweetheart” her mother says simply, as if this is any other evening conversation and Sefhana decides that pretending to be alright with this mystery will be her first and longest lie.

She learns that the universe doesn’t give a shit when she’s sixteen and the sun is setting, painting the sky vibrant colors as flames consume her house. She knows her mother is in there, though she hears nothing but the crackling of the flames, but the fire is licking closer to the trees and crawling along the grass. _“Save the forest,”_ her mother would say, because the forest is large and a source of life and all Sefhana has ever known. The forest is _bigger_ , bigger than her, bigger than a loving, yet emotionally distant mother.

The sun is rising and the sky is beautiful again by the time the fire is out and she feels as if she has drained the river and dug through the earth with the amount of water and dirt she has thrown over the flames. Two trees are lost and several yards of earth are scorched of life. The cabin and its contents are mostly black dust with the slightest of skeletons left. Her body aches so badly she thinks she might have torn every muscle she has and her lungs ache from the smoke and her hands are shaking, but she trudges forward. She shifts through the leftovers of her home, until she finds those of her mother in what was once a short hallway. She takes what she finds and by the time she’s buried it at the base of the largest tree she knows, the sun is high in the sky and the birds are chirping and she realizes that, for the universe, this is a normal day.

 At eighteen she learns that she can depend on herself alone. Her hands are chapped and the skin cracked. She’s underweight, making her clothes a size too big, and her body shudders as the snow falls softly and she can barely feel her face, but none of this matters. She’s put the last nail in and her house is finally rebuilt, exactly as it was and exactly where it was. It’s not exactly the same, honestly, some of the boards were put in crookedly and some pieces don’t match precisely, but it’s close enough that, when she steps inside, for a brief moment she’s a child again, returning home after some play in the snow.

Two hours later the roof collapses beneath the weight of the snow, because she’d forgotten a supporting beam, but she has walls around her once more so she tells herself it’s still a success of sorts.

She’s twenty and she learns that she is a greater weapon than any blade or even arrow. A mercenary group of three men are passing by and, instead of being interested in trade or directions like the few passersby she had met before, they’re ransacking her house and one’s got her pinned back against him with an arm around her neck and another around her torso, pinning her arms. The tallest of the men is nearly a foot taller than her and the shortest still has several inches on her. They’re stronger, as she’s never been good at putting on muscle mass. She’s stopped struggling, as that had only made the man’s grip grow tighter, but as she watches them tear through her house and gather whatever of her measly belongings they believe valuable, she can feel rage bubbling up from her chest and into her throat and she wonders if maybe this is what some call _bloodlust_.

She’s calm, though, can’t remember the last time she wasn’t. “I haven’t had visitors in a while.” Her voice is smooth, comes out the way she’s heard prostitutes speak to men passing by, but more subtle, mysterious as to intent. She’d spoken quietly, audible to only the man holding her. His footwork shifts the slightest bit and she feels his head tilt. He’s curious. “If you perhaps promise not to take _all_ of my belongings”—she breathes deeply, feigning compromise—“we could maybe… work something out.” She makes her intent clear now, wanting the man to know what exactly she’s offering. There’s a moment of no reaction and she worries that maybe she hadn’t been persuasive enough and he has seen through her, or perhaps that he simply has no interest. Then his arm around her torso slides down barely an inch and she knows she’s got him. The arm slides further down, hand beginning to curve toward a clear destination. She doesn’t let him get that far, though, because that’s enough leeway for her to slip her arms free. She grabs the offending hand and adrenaline lets her bend the wrist until there’s a clear snap and the man cries out, all the while she’s sending her heel straight into his shin. She stumbles forward from his grasp, but manages to grab the dagger from his belt and fit the hilt nicely into her grasp before she turns around and sticks it right into his gut, through the seams of his armor. The man stills, gasps, and falls to his knees, dying. She lets the dagger slip from her hand, because while she’s killed animals before for the sake of sustenance, she has never killed a man nor other person and she’s more shocked at her lack of remorse than she is by the actual act.

The other man in her kitchen, the tallest of them, is already making his way over, though, sword in hand. She quickly bends down and reclaims the dagger from the other man’s gut, before tossing it at the tall man. She dodges it, stepping to the side, but it gives her enough time to lunge for her homemade arrows, wrenching one from the quiver with enough force to make three more fall out. She turns and the man’s reached her, swinging his sword. She swerves to avoid it, but can feel it slice against her abdomen. Not a lethal wound, but she has to clench her teeth against the pain. She’s right up against the man now and she slams her knee into his gut. He grunts and his surprise at her attack leaves him vulnerable enough for her to stick the arrow into his throat. The man gurgles and stumbles back, tripping and falling over an uneven floorboard.

By the time the third man has reacted to the skirmish and rounds the corner from her bedroom into the small hallway, she’s got her bow and is releasing an arrow straight into his head and he falls, wide-eyed and lifeless.

She drags their bodies to the river and lets the current take them. She returns home and it’s later, when she’s almost done throwing out everything they’d touched, that she realizes she had forgotten to clean up the blood. The floor winds up stained, but she figures it’s time the uneven floorboards and crooked walls aren’t her only mark on this house.

Two years later she somehow winds up traveling with a group of complete, and totally untrustworthy strangers. They’re all misfits, none of which immediately likeable to her, and she’s no reason to believe they’ll prove to be anything but undependable. She’s done learning, she knows what to expect from people and the world now.

She’s twenty-two when she learns that there are lessons still to be learned.


End file.
